Black and White and Purple and Orange
by Laura of Maychoria
Summary: Dean makes a friend. Sam rolls his eyes a lot. AU tag to 4.05. Spoilerific!


**Black and White and Purple and Orange **

Dean sat on the edge of the grandiose bed, one arm around Jamie, watching the shapeshifter dab at the dark streaks on his chest. "So. Fake blood."

Sam sat somewhere to the side, still rubbing his shoulder, which had hit the floor pretty hard after he crashed through the Styrofoam wall. "How did you switch the bullets in my gun?"

"I haf my ways," the guy said with an airy flip of a hand.

"The bodies?"

"Realistic, no? The boy that the Wolf Man appeared to take will make his way home soon, feeling only intoxicated and foolish. The others will wake up on their own and feel no ill effects."

He seemed far too impressed with his own special effects. Dean rolled his eyes, aware of Jamie doing the same, just in the opposite direction. God, they were made for each other. It was beautiful.

"All to re-enact one of your favorite monster movies," Sam said, incredulous and faintly outraged.

"Aw, c'mon, Sam," Dean felt compelled to interject. "You have to admit that it was pretty cool." It was true. He had to respect the guy's boldness in just going after what he wanted and making it happen in a such a dramatic and effective way.

"Actually," the shifter said, raising his white-painted nose to a snooty tilt, "I was making one uf my own, if you recall. The Wolf Man and the Mummy did not appear in the original Dracula."

"Neither did lederhosen," Dean muttered. He wasn't bitter. Not at all.

Jamie patted his knee, then let her fingers run up a little farther, slipping under the edge of the fabric. "I don't mind them, really," she said into his ear, leaning further back against his shoulder.

Dean shuddered and sat up a little straighter. Okay, he definitely wasn't bitter at all.

Sam transferred his pissy look to Dean. "How would you know that there weren't lederhosen in the original Dracula? You didn't even know that Mina and Harker were in it."

"Hey, I watched the movies!" Dean protested. This was the way it had always been—Sam knew books and Dean knew TV and movies. It was one of the many ways they distributed responsibility, and it helped their partnership run smoothly. "I just didn't remember that part."

Sam threw his hands up in air. "They were a major part of the plot!"

"Like I ever watched those movies for the plot." Dean smirked over at their new…well, not friend, but at least not enemy. "The gore was always way more interesting, am I right or am I right?"

The shapeshifter looked personally affronted by the question. "How many times do I have to explain this to you people?" The cheesy Eastern European accent was abruptly gone, leaving him sounding completely average. Like the guy next door, the one who would pick up your newspaper for you when you were on vacation and tried not to let his dog crap on your lawn too often. Not that Dean had any experience with having neighbors, but that's what the guy sounded like, anyway. "The classic monster movies are elegant, entrancing, beautiful, cinematography and plot and characters all meshing into a cohesive whole that is more worthy of being called 'art' than most modern works."

"Hey, I hear you, man. The new _Godzilla_ was freakin' horrible. And with the things me and Sam see on a daily basis, I don't use that word lightly."

The shifter shivered in commiseration. "I liked the T-rex battle in the new _King Kong,_ though."

"Hell, yeah, that was awesome."

Jamie shifted on the bed. "Are you going to keep talking about cheesy horror movies all night?"

The shifter nodded eagerly. "We could do that. Or we could upstairs and…" He whipped his cape dramatically across his face, lowering his eyebrows so that his eyes stood out, dark and intense. The accent returned with sudden force, like Sam kicking in the door. "VATCH THEM."

Dean bounced up. "Yeah! Let's do that!"

Then he felt a draft where there definitely shouldn't ever, ever be a draft, and glared down at himself. Dammit, men were not meant to have bare knees in public. He looked up at the…guy. "Hey, what's your name?"

The shifter dropped the cape from in front of his face and poked his index fingers at each other, for all the world like a nervous middle schooler on his first day at a new school. "Um. It's Ted. My name is Ted."

"Okay, Ted. Where are my clothes?"

X

Sam couldn't believe this was happening. After all that the shapeshifter…Ted…had put them through, Dean was still bouncing all over his (perfectly ordinary, though stacked with DVDs on all walls) living room, talking animatedly about dozens of movies Sam had never heard of. Out of the lederhosen and knee socks and back in his FBI costume, though leaving off the suit jacket and tie, Dean seemed to have regained every bit of his equilibrium and delight.

Jamie seemed to be pretty much okay with it, too, once Ted had apologized a couple of dozen times for punching her and let her take a whack at him. Her solid right hook had knocked him on his ass, and he had stood up and bowed, expressing admiration for her considerable strength and skill. Now she sat on the couch, watching Dean with a small, fond smile, utterly charmed by his puppy-like eagerness.

Sam rolled his eyes yet again. His face muscles were starting to hurt from doing that so much.

"Sam, Sam! Which one?" Dean had paused in his endless circuits of the living room to stop by Sam's armchair, holding up two DVD cases. Both covers were black and white, with that stupid "horror" font that was supposed to look like dripping blood or something. "We got _Frankenstein Meets Dracula_ or _Return of the Wolf Man._ Whaddya think?"

Sam felt his mouth drop open in true horror. "God, Dean, they both look awful."

"I know, right?" Dean turned them over in his hands to beam smugly down at the covers. "Terrible and beautiful. My kind of show."

"Besides, don't you think we should let the lady choose?" Ted turned to Jamie with a courtly gesture and a slight bow. Unlike Dean and Jamie, he had not changed out of his costume. He seemed most comfortable when he had a cape that he could flap dramatically and cover his face with at opportune moments. "It would be un-chivalrous not to meet her desires first."

Jamie peered up at him a bit uncertainly. "Actually, I'm in the mood for something a little more…recent."

Ted was taken aback, but recovered quickly. "Oh? What do you have in mind?"

"Well, I haven't seen the new Indy movie yet. Maybe we could rent it?"

Dean flung his arms out toward her in unquenchable glee, all but crowing. "Oh, Jamie, you haven't seen it yet? And you want to? God, I love you already." He turned back to Sam, grinning with his tongue stuck out between his teeth just a tiny bit. "I bet _she_ wouldn't go see a movie that she _knew_ her brother wanted to see without him while he was unable to protest. Jamie would be a _good_ sister."

Sam felt a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth and ruthlessly squashed it. "You're such a jerk."

"And you're a whiny little bitch." But he just kept grinning, soft and wide.

Dean turned back to Ted, rocking forward on his toes. "We should order pizza, too. That stuff you had downstairs was ice cold. I could only choke down two pieces."

Ted perked up. "I have another coupon."

Sam rolled his eyes heavenward, then turned toward the wall and covered his mouth with his hand to hide his grin. He wouldn't say it, but he was glad that they hadn't had to kill Ted after all, that it had all been an enormous fake-out. Sometimes it was okay to find a hunt that wasn't black and white, but more orange and purple with subtle shades of pink at the edges.

They got their movie and their pizza, and Dean and Jamie made out on the couch, and Sam threw popcorn at the huge TV at the more ridiculous moments, already knowing when they would turn up. And Ted the shapeshifter sat on the other side of the room, watching them more often than he watched the screen, a small, happy smile on his face. It was all he had wanted—just a few people who appreciated the same things he did. Who understood him and didn't hate being around him, despite how different he was.

Sam understood. It wasn't much different at all from what he wanted, too.

(End)


End file.
